


The Thing

by KikiKierra



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, I'm just using Ellick to create some plot, My interpretation of the 17x03 promo, This is Slibbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 05:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20861105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KikiKierra/pseuds/KikiKierra
Summary: When Jack ends up in the middle of Nick and Ellie's fight, Nick starts making some interesting accusations that force Jack to face her feelings for Gibbs. I suck at summaries but this is my interpretation of the very Slibbs-heavy 17x03 promo.





	The Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to y'all. I'm so freaking excited for 17x03 that I can hardly cope. This is my interpretation of the promo (that I definitely didn't write when I was actually supposed to be writing an essay lol). But anyway I encourage all other Slibbs writers to write their own interpretations cause I'm super curious as to how y'all see it playing out. Anyway I wrote this super fast so please forgive any mistakes. I hope you like it :)

* * *

Ellie shook her head and stood up. “So sick of you,” she muttered under her breath.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Nick snarked from his desk. 

“I said I’m so sick of you!” she snapped, “I’m so sick of you and your attitude Nick!” With that she stormed towards the stairs.

“Oh really, I thought this was what you wanted! Since to you we’re clearly nothing more than coworkers! I thought we were friends!” 

Ellie froze halfway up the stairs and stared at him, processing what he’d said. She was hurt, but more than that she was angry. “I can’t believe you Nick! I don’t even wanna talk to you right now!” She resumed her journey up the stairs to Jack’s office.

Nick, never one to let things go, hurried after her. “Yeah Bishop? Well when will you wanna talk huh? You’re not all innocent like you make out,” he called after her. 

“Leave me alone Nick!” she shouted back. 

Ellie burst through the door of Jack’s office making her jump. “Sorrytointerruptbut-” she said her words coming out hurried and desperate. 

The distress clear in Ellie’s voice had Jack quickly putting away the file she was currently working on and taking off her glasses. She motioned to the chair in front of her desk. “No problem, take a seat, what’s on your mind?”

Almost as soon as she’d finished speaking Nick burst through the door. “Seriously Ellie, you can’t just walk away from me-” he started but seemed to take in the situation and calm down slightly. 

“Ah,” Jack said “I see”. She motioned to the other chair and Nick obliged. 

“So, _ Ellie _, what exactly is going on?” Jack asked. 

“_ Nick _ is driving me crazy! He’s had an attitude for ages and now he’s going on about us not being friends! I don’t know what’s going on,” her voice cracked, the anger giving way to hurt. 

“Ellie seriously?! You can’t play the victim!” Nick snapped but one look from Jack made him change his tone “I don’t know what you expect me to think, first you pretty much accuse me of murder and then you keep this whole Ziva thing from me. Does that sound like something a friend would do?” 

“Nick I-” Ellie sighed “look, the whole murder thing I was just doing my job, I wasn’t trying to hurt you … I was just trying to look at the situation objectively”.

“That’s ridiculous! A real friend wouldn’t even consider it! Stop making excuses!” Nick shouted. 

“Hey Nick,” Jack interrupted “I think you need to calm down a little bit, I know you feel hurt, I know you feel betrayed, but Ellie is trying to explain herself to you. I think she at least deserves to be heard”.

“You know what? Screw this!” Nick stood up, violently pushing back his chair “Screw this and screw you Agent Sloane”. 

Jack was shocked at his sudden outburst but made an effort not to show it beyond the slight furrowing of her brow. Ellie on the other hand made no such effort, her mouth hung open as she looked back and forth between Jack and Nick. 

“I didn’t come here to be lectured! And I sure as hell didn’t come here to be analysed!” the word rolled off his tongue with such disdain that Jack couldn’t help but be offended. “Besides,” he continued “I dunno who you think you are, analysing all of us like it’ll take the focus off the thing you clearly have with Gibbs!” With that Nick stormed out of the office, at this point he knew he was being unreasonable but he was too angry to care. 

“Nick! Nick wait!” Jack called after him, she knew she had to do some damage control. The last thing NCIS needed was an angry Nick Torres throwing verbal punches at anyone within reach. And the last thing _ she _ needed was him blabbing any more about her and Gibbs. 

“Wait, what thing?” Ellie asked, thoroughly confused. But before the words had even left her mouth Jack was out of the door and chasing Nick, leaving a puzzled Ellie alone in the office.

Jack silently cursed her choice of shoes as she ran down the stairs and only just caught up with Nick as he got into the elevator, making it inside seconds before the door closed. 

“Nick…’ Jack said gently as she pressed the emergency stop button and the elevator ground to a halt. 

He took some deep breaths and rubbed his temples “what now,” he muttered tersely.

“Look Nick, I know you don’t like talking about your feelings, I get that, but you can’t go around attacking everyone,” Jack said, her voice level and deliberate, trying to avoid setting him off again. 

“No, I don’t like being _ analysed _,” he corrected.

“I’m not trying to analyse you, I just want to help you”.

“Well I don’t want _ your _help!” 

“Okay, but that doesn’t give you the right to throw around unfounded accusations,” she said.

“Unfounded?” Nick scoffed, his anger giving way to amusement “who do you think you’re fooling? We all know you two have a thing, and hey, it’s cool, whatever. But if you get to analyse us then you’re fair game too”.

“What thing?!” Jack asked, sounding a little too defensive for her liking but she was beginning to panic about just how much Nick had figured out “what are you talking about?!”

“C’mon, you think we don’t see all the looks, the smiles, the touching - it’s a thing”.

“There is _ no thing _,” Jack replied, more firmly this time, managing to get control of herself. “And this,” she motioned between them “is not about me, it’s about you needing to deal with everything you’re going through.''

“Yeah and I already said I don’t need your help with that,” Nick muttered, frustration creeping back into his voice. 

Jack sighed, “well if you won’t talk to me, at least talk to someone, I have a colleague, Grace, she might be able to help”.

“Well maybe _ you _ need to talk to her yourself Agent Sloane”.

“_ I do _, Nick, I already do. And you know what? It helps, believe me”. 

“Okay,” he softened, appreciating her moment of vulnerability “I’ll try”.

“Good,” Jack said as she pressed the button to direct the elevator back to the bullpen “and Nick, all this talk about a thing between Gibbs and I needs to stop”.

“I make no promises,” he smirked as the elevator doors opened and he stepped out, he could practically feel her glare at him as he did so. 

Ellie saw the elevator doors open and rushed to intercept Jack while Nick returned to his desk. “Torres is right y’know, you and Gibbs _ do _ have a thing … why didn’t you tell me?”

Jack sighed. “There’s no thing, there’s nothing to tell. Let it go Ellie, please”. She made her way towards the stairs, keen to get away from everyone probing at her feelings. 

“Yes there is! All those looks, like you guys share some kind of secret. There’s something there,” Ellie pressed.

“It’s nothing, we’re just friends,” Jack replied as she headed up the stairs.

“It’s a thing!” Ellie and Nick chorused after her.

“What’s a thing?” Gibbs asked as he and McGee entered the bullpen.

“Nothing boss,” Nick answered.

“Yup, nothing at all,” Ellie added awkwardly as she and Nick scrambled to appear busy. 

“Right, well, you two better have an update”.

*** 

Now back in her office Jack sighed and put her head in her hands. She knew Nick was right, her and Gibbs had something, she just hadn’t realised everyone else seemed to know too. 

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get any work done until she’d cleared her head she picked up her phone and called Grace. 

“Hey Jack, what’s up?” Grace said as she answered the phone.

“It’s Gibbs,” Jack replied.

“What? Is he alright?” Grace asked. 

“No, I mean, remember when I said I wanted to open up to someone…”

“Yes…” 

“Well, it’s Gibbs”.

“Okay, and…” Grace pressed, knowing something must’ve pushed Jack into confessing what she had already expected. 

“And now you know. And apparently so does half the team,” Jack explained “and I don’t know what to do”.

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know Grace,” Jack sighed “he doesn’t feel the same way, I don’t want to lose him.''

“You can’t know that Jack,” she reasoned “not unless you talk to him”.

“This is Gibbs we’re talking about, he’s impossible to talk to!” she groaned, the frustration evident in her voice. 

As she said this she heard a knock and looked up to see Gibbs walk in. “Ugh, speak of the devil, I’ve gotta go,” she said, unable to banish the emotion from her voice quickly enough.

She hung up the phone before Grace could reply. “Gibbs, what can I do for you?” she asked, her sunny disposition returning as she got up to meet him in that way she did for only him. 

He just looked at her expectantly then nodded to the phone she’d left on her desk. “What was that?’ 

“It was, uh, nothing,” Jack said, feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

“Really, cause I’m getting mighty sick of hearing that from people today,” he muttered, thinking back to Torres and Bishop only a few minutes earlier. “It was about me,” he said more firmly, stepping closer to her so they were almost touching. “So ... anything you wanna talk about?” 

“Uhhh,” she forced herself to look at him, despite the deer-in-the-headlights expression she knew was all over her face. She took a breath, got control of herself, and took a step back lest she do something stupid. “I, uh, yes. Yes, the case,” she turned back to her desk to grab the profile he was here for and just like that the moment was gone and it was all business. She gave him a run down of the profile and what to look for then sent him on his way.

Once he was gone she sat back down at her desk and tried to focus on her work. But her mind just kept wandering. She knew she was going to have to do something about this soon. Nick and Ellie were only teasing and she knew they’d never intentionally do anything to expose her feelings. But needless to say, those two could only keep a secret for so long. Soon half the building was going to know and the last thing she wanted was Gibbs finding out from someone else. 

*** 

By the end of the day Gibbs’ case was closed, Jack’s profile proving to be extremely useful, as always. He smiled as he thought of her and the way that she and all her fancy psychology methods had burst into his life and found their way into his heart. She was weird this morning and his gut told him it had something to do with whatever Torres and Bishop had been talking about. 

He made his way up to her office, knocked, and let himself in. He found her sitting on the couch, knees curled up toward her chest, clearly lost in thought. She looked up but made no effort to get up. “Gibbs, hey,” she said softly. 

He sat down beside her. “You okay Jack?” he asked, when she didn’t answer he continued “whatever was going on this morning, you can talk to me about it”.

She nodded slowly, as if she was mulling it over. She sighed “Nick thinks we have a thing,” she said simply. 

Gibbs raised an eyebrow but said nothing, knowing if he waited long enough she’d keep talking.

“Well … do we?” she asked eventually. 

He gave her another one of his trademark looks that told her she wasn’t going to get away with that. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. “Look Gibbs, it’s true that I have _ feelings _ for you,” she said softly, unable to look him in the eye “I guess what I wanna know is if you have those feelings too?”

He reached out and took her hand “Jack … how long?” he asked.

She responded with a breathy laugh and just shook her head “a long time,” she murmured. 

He smirked slightly “me too”. 

She looked up at him, eyes wide “wait you mean you…?”

“Yeah,” he stood up, pulling her to her feet too “c’mere”. He pulled her in close and leant down to kiss her gently. 

As they broke apart she couldn’t hide her smile. She pushed strands of hair behind her ear, the intimacy of the moment they shared making her suddenly shy. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said and she smiled, pulling him back to her. He held her close, enjoying the way she felt in his arms. 

They stayed like that, content, for what felt like forever but was really only a few minutes before she whispered in his ear “c’mon, let’s go home Cowboy”.


End file.
